Monday, July 18, 2005

Anarchangel's Fatwa

As most of you already know, Chris Byrne at Anarchangel has had a Fatwa issued calling for him to be killed because he desecrated the Koran. Response across the blogosphere has varied widely, from ignoring the issue, to wanting to be added to the fatwa.

Whether Chris's actions were ill-advised or not is not the point. The point to me seems to be that in THIS country, Chris has done nothing more than to express his own freedom of actions, on his own property, using his own personal Korans.

He could have done the same thing with the Bible, the Book of Mormon, or even "Atlas Shrugged". In each case, regardless of the book he used, someone's going to get upset if the actions are publicised.

In a free country, there are no laws guaranteeing that someone elses actions, or speech, for that matter, won't tick you off. Just because someone makes you mad doesn't give you the right to threaten their life, at least, not in this country, and it shouldn't, in ANY country.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Chris and his family, and we hope that these terrible people that have threatened him are located, and brought to justice.